THE SALTON SEA [Illustration] THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO [Illustration: The Salton Sea in August 1906 _Frontispiece_] THE SALTON SEA AN ACCOUNT OF HARRIMAN’S FIGHT WITH THE COLORADO RIVER BY GEORGE KENNAN ILLUSTRATED New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1917 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1917 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and printed. Published May, 1917. FOREWORD I desire gratefully to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Smithsonian Institution, the U. S. Reclamation Service, the U. S. Geological Survey, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the officials of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, for their courtesy in furnishing me information, or permitting me to make use of their maps, diagrams and illustrations. GEORGE KENNAN. CONTENTS PAGES 1. THE SALTON SINK 5 2. THE CREATION OF THE OASIS 18 3. THE RUNAWAY RIVER 31 4. THE SAVING OF THE VALLEY 61 5. THE RECOMPENSE 93 ILLUSTRATIONS The Salton Sea in August, 1906 _Frontispiece_ _Opposite page_ Relief Map of Imperial Valley 19 A Part of Colorado River Watershed 31 Agricultural Lands Eroded 57 A Flood Waterfall } } 58 Nearer View of Flood Cataract } Channel Cut by Runaway River 60 Hind-Clarke Dam } } 89 Railroad Track on Reconstructed Levee } THE SALTON SEA “The desert waited, silent, hot and fierce in its desolation, holding its treasures under the seal of death against the coming of the strong ones.” (_Inscription over the main entrance to the Barbara Worth Hotel, El Centro, Imperial Valley._) No series of events in the history of southern California is more interesting, or more dramatic, than the creation of the beautiful and fertile oasis of the Imperial Valley in the arid desert-basin of the Salton Sink; the partial transformation of this cultivated valley into a great Inland Sea by the furious inpour of a runaway river; the barring out of the flood by the courage and energy of a single man, and the final development of the valley into one of the richest agricultural areas in the world.